Jonah | Relentless

 

SCRIPTURE

Jonah 3

Jonah Goes to Nineveh

1  Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

MAIN IDEA

God relentlessly pursues you, so to relent
from the destruction that is owed you. 

GOING DEEPER
Questions from this weeks message.

1. What insight, principle or observation from this week’s message did you find to be most helpful, eye opening or troubling? Please explain.

2. Has there been a time you made a mistake or sinned, and it led you to defining yourself as someone who could never do better? How was that unhelpful in dealing with your sin?

3. Why is deflecting our mistakes, or just covering up our wrongs by pretending them away unhelpful in overcoming them for our future? Have you seen this in your own life or others?

4. Read Jonah 3. Verse 5 says that the people believed God. Why must we come face to face with our sin and the consequences before we can move past it and not fall into repeating it?

5. People often don’t change until the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing. Why might this be the “fools way”, and what do the Ninevites show us as to a better way?

6. The people and the king humbled themselves. Part of their humility was an admission of their sin, a recognition of consequences coming, a turning away from their sin, and a turning to God. Why are all these steps important and which ones are the hardest to do for you?

7. God’s love relentlessly chases us to save us from destruction. Sometimes that relentless pursuit includes allowing pain or consequences along the way. How has pain or consequences been instrumental in your life to draw you (back) to God?

8. How can the group pray for you this week?

SUMMARY POINTS
  • Failure has a way of making us feel like failures.
  • We easily live into the vision we have of ourselves.
  • You are what you think.
  • You know what you are hiding, and you can’t hide it from you.
  • What to do when you mess up?
  • People don’t change until the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing.
  • Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Apart from God there is no chance. With God there is hope.
  • God relentlessly pursues you, so to relent from the destruction that is owed you.
  • Faith in the real world is a faith filled with messy tension.
  • Faith grows up by going deeper, and faith grows deeper in the drought or when it deconstructs to reconstruct.